XML and PHP is designed to introduce PHP developers to the synergies that become visible when their favorite web-scripting language is combined with one of the most talked about technologies of recent times, XML. XML and PHP teaches PHP developers how to use PHP's XML functions to develop and maintain XML-based web applications and sites, and it demonstrates the power inherent in the XML/PHP combination. This book provides information on all hte major XML technologies supported in PHP, demonstrating how the XML/PHP combination can be used to deliver cutting-edge web applications through practical examples and real-world case studies. XML and PHP serves as both an implementation guide to the topic and a handy desktop reference for quick lookups-combining all the information that developers need into a single, focused package.

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Product Description

From the Back Cover

XML and PHP is designed to introduce PHP developers to the synergies that become visible when their favorite web-scripting language is combined with one of the most talked about technologies of recent times, XML. XML and PHP teaches PHP developers how to use PHP's XML functions to develop and maintain XML-based web applications and sites, and it demonstrates the power inherent in the XML/PHP combination. This book provides information on all hte major XML technologies supported in PHP, demonstrating how the XML/PHP combination can be used to deliver cutting-edge web applications through practical examples and real-world case studies. XML and PHP serves as both an implementation guide to the topic and a handy desktop reference for quick lookups-combining all the information that developers need into a single, focused package.

About the Author

Vikram Vaswani is the founder and CEO of Melonfire (http://www.melonfire.com), a company specializing in software consultancy, and content creation and syndication services.

Vikram is also the author of numerous well-received articles on open-source technologies (including Perl, Python, XML, and the very popular PHP 101 series), all written with the goal of making complex technologies accessible and understandable to novice users. He has been developing software since 1995, was first introduced to PHP in 1998, and hasn't looked back since. His favorite activities include reading, sleeping, watching movies, playing squash, and fiddling with his PalmPilot.

These reviewers contributed their considerable hands-on expertise to the entire development process for XML and PHP. As the book was being written, these dedicated professionals reviewed all the material for technical content, organization, and flow. Their feedback was critical to ensure that XML and PHP fits our readers' need for the highest-quality technical information.

Zak Greant is lead developer for 51 Degrees North, and is the founder of the Foo & Associates programmer's cooperative. He leads the PHP Quality Assurance Team, and is an active contributor to the PHP documentation, mailing lists, and source code. (See http://www.zend.com/comm_person.php?id=56 for his PHP community profile.)

Mark Nenadov is a bright, young software developer living in Canada (he does not reside in an igloo or speak French, however). Mark specializes in Open Source technology, and has lots of experience with technologies such as PHP, XML, MySQL, and Python. He is currently employed at a growing e-commerce company in Windsor, Ontario. When he isn't hunched over his keyboard, he is usually trying to learn new things, playing ice hockey, writing, reading books, and wishing it were a bit warmer in Canada.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

This is a really great book and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is interested on how to use XML through PHP.And this is exactly what this book is about; using XML and PHP together. Although it does have a basic introduction on XML and PHP, if you are new to any of these technologies (particularly XML) I would suggest you get a book just for that. This book, really jumps into things and goes straight into assisting you about using XML with PHP, which is really good to my opinion.The book starts off with a really short introductory chapter and moves on to cover SAX, the DOM, XSLT, WDDX, RPC and Databases (all with direct use with PHP, NOT simply XML). There is also a really nice chapter about open source PHP/XML Alternatives (e.g. PHP.XPath, the eZXML DOM parser written in PHP, XML-RPC for PHP and SOAPx4, a PHP implementation of SOAP). Finally the book has an excellent Case Study chapter to get you more involved with practical implementation of what is covered. The book uses PHP and XML with Apache and MySQL throughout, which is great news for the many who use open source software, while it doesn't really matter to users of other servers and databases.Honestly, a great book!

This book is for advanced technical level but it makes things very easy to learn. It is probably a good idea to say that you need at least some knowledge of PHP and XML before you start reading it, even if there is a very good introduction to both.The (quite) extensive list of XML-bases technologies studied in this book gives you an idea of what can be done and which solution is best considering what you need.Each of them is widely and clearly explained, with perfect examples.Very useful before you start your PHP & XML journey...

Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)

Amazon.com:
15 reviews

40 of 47 people found the following review helpful

A questionable book...14 Aug. 2002

By
Xi Chi
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Paperback

After all the flaky reviews this book has received, I was unsure if I was reading individual marketing campaigns sponsored by the various publishers or actual reviews. It seems that people cannot simply agree that this book is good or is bad as there is just nothing in between. Even in all the review cases, many people didn't find the reviews helpful, both positive and negative. It all seems complex from the consumer's perspective when deciding to buy this book.So given all these statements, I thought I'd present a true review - one from an actual reader rather than from someone else. I think it's pretty safe to assume that this book is good for some people and bad for others. The problem is that the reviews already here have so much fluff that they didn't even begin to describe themselves, thus they could be ambitious or lazy, smart or dim, and hobbyist or entrepreneurs. There is simply no way of telling.Personally, I think many of these concepts can be learned in PHP in about 2-3 days of trying the APIs out if you already know a great deal of XML. So if I'm going to buy a book on PHP and XML, I expect that it will provided added value information as well as design decisions, business concerns and best practices. Examples are not what I care about as much as the rich and deep information because there are many examples already on the web - no point acquiring the book just for those alone. That makes me question the reviewers who say the examples are clear and concise - the examples on the web already do that. Books are supposed to provide added value to these APIs and examples to make the topic complete and valuable to the reader. The book should also scale well to both beginning audiences (this book does very well) to expert audiences that want to drill through the basic information like APIs and examples and learn more advanced techniques, best practices, etc. This book doesn't deliver on these areas very well unfortunately.So, for a person like me: This book receives 2 stars. I didn't learn all that much from it and I was disappointed to say the least. He's a good writer, funny at times, and knows what he is doing, but he also catered to a specific audience and it shows. Is that the goal? Probably. But I think the expert people shouldn't have expected too much (as I did) - that's the truth.Although I personally give this book 2 stars, I believe that many beginner PHP programmers who have a little idea to what XML is will benefit from it. If you've already read some XML material on the net and even read a book or two, this book won't exactly help you out too much. However, this segment is rather small I would believe. I'm still looking for a book that I can give to my employees for reference as well as added value information. When I find it, I'll put a review there as well so you can compare.So there you have it - an honest review. I hope it helps people out in their purchasing decisions.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

dissapointed9 Jan. 2005

By
J. Schirris
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Paperback

I've been reading the book, and had a feeling it explained a lot.

Finally, i could use it, but the code used is very outdated (01-2005). That's why i visited their website.

as the book refers to the site often.

[...]

check it yourself, no updates, the forum is closed.

why did i buy this book?

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

Out of Date13 Jun. 2004

By
Phillip Glau
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Paperback
Verified Purchase

I've been reading this book recently (6/11/2004). With regards to DOM and XML, it's very out of date given the current development of PHP. Would advise newer, more up to date book if you're interested in DOM and XML.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful

Lots Of Good Content, Examples24 July 2002

By
Santosh Jaini
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Paperback

i have bought both the wrox book and this one and much prefer this one. while the wrox book is good, i find this one to be much easier to understand, and to use as a base for my own projects. i am building an XML-based transaction server, and the chapters on DOM, WDDX and SOAP were very useful, as i was able to use some of the code from the book in my project without any difficulty. also i appreciated the chapters on using open-source alternatives to the built-in functions (this is again not available in wrox, which also tended to be infuriatingly vague at certain points).if you are a serious developer, i would recommend buying both books - i refer to both the wrox book and this one since neither one is exhaustive - but i learnt more from this one, as it is written in a clearer manner.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

Good XML code and application examples in PHP27 April 2004

By
Jack D. Herrington
- Published on Amazon.com

Format: Paperback

Chapters two and three start the book with good examples of SAX and DOM use in PHP respectively. This provides a solid foundation for the rest of the book which shows examples of popular XML based technologies as applied to PHP. These include XSLT (Sablotron), XML-RPC, SOAP, XML in databases and other topics. Each of these discussions contains some real world examples to provide context.It's a short and concise book that is well written. The use of graphics could be more effective. For example the screenshot in figure 6.8 is a single line in a vast sea of whtie browser space. The code sample could use some annotation or at the very least some bolding to hi-light the important segments.The value of this book will depend on the degree to which you use XML in the PHP context. If you want a quick booster rocket to get you into SAX or DOM work within PHP this book will do the trick since it's far better than the documentation on the PHP site.